Jerry Springer was funny, smart and never took himself too seriously

nypost.com:

died Thursday at 79, just as he was settling into a life of happy semi-retirement, more interested in talking about his grandson Richard — a talented baseball player and the light of Jerry’s life — than anything to do with television or his nearly 30-year run as the bemused host of “The Jerry Springer Show.” That’s who Jerry was — the British-born son of Holocaust survivors and a mensch who never took his on-camera persona very seriously.

If he did, I would have been worried: Jerry was trained as a lawyer and was far more interested in social issues and politics (he was the mayor of Cincinnati from 1977 to 1978).

And don’t forget his sense of humor, which came through in every one of my conversations with him. Heck, I once saw Jerry do a comedic stage version of “The Price Is Right” in Atlantic City and he had ’em rolling in the aisles.

He was in on the joke and the antics of his daytime guests. He knew which side his bread was buttered on when it came to making a living and giving the national TV audience what it wanted — escapist entertainment wrapped up in a syndicated talk show with a circus-type atmosphere with its bespectacled host as “The Ringmaster” of his daytime domain.